Resolutions
by Essay33
Summary: New Year's Eve, 2005. A time for resolutions. This is a one-shot in-canon piece, taking place during the "lost months" in New Moon.


Stephenie Meyer owns all things Twilight. I just pick up her literary snow globe, shake it a bit, admire the pretty scene within, then put it down again.

**Author's Note: **I've never liked the concept of New Year's resolutions. It seems to me that if you're going to make a real change in your life, it ought not to be generated by some kind of annual event, but rather come naturally out of a heartfelt desire to make a change. However, New Year's Eve approaches, and what better time to consider the concept of resolutions in the world of Twilight…

* * *

Charlie Swan rubbed his bleary eyes, trying to focus on the flat screen TV. A car commercial segued to an image of people thronging Times Square, a wild mass of riotous hilarity as they waited for the famous lighted ball to drop. Charlie took another swig of beer, the Rainier can warm in his hand. The beer was tepid by now. Ten minutes to midnight…end of another year. _Hell of a year it's been_.

Thumbing the TV remote control, he hit the "mute" button. The old house was eerily silent around him. Maybe she'd sleep through the night for once. He wouldn't bet on it though. Taking another swig of warm beer, he stretched and turned the TV volume back on. The announcer introduced a musical group, someone Charlie had never heard of. They weren't half bad though, he noted.

At first the sound blended in with the musicians on the TV, and the background cheers and shouts of the New Years Eve celebrants. Rising and falling in pitch, it grew louder, and Charlie sighed. He tossed the now-empty beer can onto the coffee table and rose from the sofa, running his hands through his graying hair. Taking the steps two at a time, he reached his daughter's room and swung open her door without knocking.

"Easy there. Easy, honey. Bella, honey, I'm here, it's okay, it's alright." The words were routine by now, he'd said them so many times over the past three months. _Damn lie, nothing was alright._

He wanted it to be, wanted his calm, cheerful daughter back. He wanted to go back to summer, back to the time when she'd been happy and this kind of crap hadn't been a nightly part of their life together. Patting her shoulder ineffectually, he waited for the nightmare to subside. His daughter thrashed under the down comforter he'd bought her less than a year—more than a lifetime—ago. With a gasping cry, she awoke, shuddering.

Charlie had never figured himself to be weak, but he was powerless in the face of her pain. He was a fighter, and he figured she'd inherited that from him, but he couldn't figure out how to fight this battle. All he could do was be there, to help her come out of the nightmares. To hope that maybe eventually she'd fight her way out of the lethargy that filled her days and the terror that punctuated her nights.

After a few moments, she stopped shuddering and huddled down under the blankets again. He pulled the comforter up to her chin, tucking it around her frail shoulders. _She's lost so much weight_. _Maybe I should have the doctor see her again…_

"I love you, Bells," he whispered. "Happy New Year, honey." She didn't respond, her eyes tightly shut, her body motionless under the blankets. Sighing, he quietly shut her door and headed back downstairs.

As he reached the living room, the announcer was talking cheerily about New Year's resolutions. Charlie scowled at the flat screen. _ You want a resolution? If Edward Cullen ever shows his face in Forks again, I'm going to kill the damn kid. He's never getting near my daughter again, so help me God._

Upstairs, underneath a layer of blankets that did nothing to warm her chilled body, Bella Swan lay in the darkness. She could faintly hear the sound of the TV. She was dimly aware that her father had been in her room, that he'd spoken to her, that she'd had—again—the nightmare that ought to be so familiar by now it should no longer frighten her. The nightmare about nothingness.

_I am nothing. _

A pair of golden eyes, hard in their indifference. A velvet voice suddenly harsh. "I don't want you…You're not good for me." She retreated from the memory, attempting to pull the nothingness up around her, a mental blanket. Motionless in the darkness, she listened to the sound of her own heartbeat, letting its dull, steady rhythm lull her.

A faint echo of the velvet voice whispered in her memory, "Your heartbeat is the most significant sound in my world."

Her heartbeat was all he'd left her. He'd taken everything else, stolen it with his sweet breath, his cool, clever fingers, his velvet voice that promised forever.

_I have nothing._

Her father's words drifted to the surface of her mind. "Happy New Year."

_A new year…fresh starts…resolutions… _The thoughts were random and disjointed, as were most of her thoughts these days. For a moment, she clung to the last one before it too drifted away.

_Resolutions…_

Smooth as honey, soft and chilling as new fallen snow, "It will be as though I'd never existed."

_Impossible. _

_I'll never forget you…but I'll try to forget…that I ever believed...that you loved me…_

_*******_

New Year's Eve. Three minutes to midnight. Far from his family, and far from Bella, Edward Cullen could hear the revelers outside, the sound of car horns and noisemakers, the sound of laughter and cheers. He imagined her, sitting in her warm little house with her father, ringing in the New Year.

_Let this be a good year for her. Let her forget me. Let her move on with her life in safety._

He'd left so much with her…his ability to smile, to laugh, to express himself in music, to care about anything. It was all hers, and without her, he had nothing. But he would give it all up, give up himself, to keep her safe.

Her absence though was an ever present ache that all but consumed him. Shoving his hands into his bronze hair, he pressed his palms hard against his skull.

_Bella…all I want to see is your face…all I want to hear is your voice…_

Memories, etched indelibly in his vampire mind, threatened to overwhelm him.

In the distance, cries of "Happy New Year!" rang out, punctuated by the popping of firecrackers.

A new year. Didn't humans use the changing of the year as a time to make resolutions? He'd make one, for her.

_I will keep you safe, whatever it costs me. I won't give in…I'll stay away from you. For your sake, Bella_...

* * *

**Author's Note**: Some resolutions were made to be broken.


End file.
